Gaming Supreme Commander 2 Demo Impressions

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/03/01/derby-road-named-lara-croft-way/1

This week saw a demo for the much anticipated Supreme Commander 2 hit Steam, so we've decided to blow the dust off the ol' ACU and find out what's whether SupCom 2 really is as Supreme as it claims to be or whether Gas Powered Games' latest title is full of hot air.

 

The link in the forum post is wrong.

Are you sure about that? I distinctly remember Chris Taylor stating they had designed a completely new engine for this game back at last year's E3. I'll see if I can find the video. They've also completely redesigned the AI pathfinding system ( http://www.gametrailers.com/video/flowfield-pathfinding-supreme-commander/62419 ), although the visuals are clearly much poorer than in the original:

http://img.xrmb2.net/images/664951.jpeg

Having just read the Eurogamer review, I'm a little more optimistic about the game than I was after playing the demo, as we've only seen the single-player portion of the game, which is notably worse than the original. It seems like most of the fun in this game is going to be in the multiplayer side of things, and as much as I loved the original SupCom, I never once played an online match because: 1. the GPG client sucked balls and was a PITA to use, and 2. the games would often be too long and I didn't want to have to quit half way through.

 

On the strength of the demo, with the amount of tweeks and improvements (polish/shiny stuff) over the first one I saw in the demo, I pre ordered this on Steam.

 

Sounds to me like a lot of the things that made the first so magnificent have been mercilessly cut. Less scale, and more scripted? I don't find it a coincidence in the slightest that Square Enix are involved.

 

I still play SupCom1 and FA frequently.
I personaly was quiet disapointed with the Demo of SupCom2.

The wholegameplay felt rahter like C&C then the original SupCom.

But like dear Harry said "it’s important to remember that a lot of what made SupCom so great isn’t in evidence here in the demo." Thats exactly why I don't understand why Square/Enix released "just" a demo over Steam, rahter then giving potential customers a chance to check out the whole game, with skrimish and multiplayer, for, let's say, a free weekend.

 

perhaps they will, personally i think this is a case of bad demo not reflecting the final thing :/

 

You can still set factories for repeat construction, you just can't queue up massive amounts of units at once like you could before. You can queue up say two fighters and a bomber with your air factory and then click the (rather tiny) "repeat" button and it'll keep building sequences of two fighters and a bomber until you make it stop.

Personally I think the new resource system is a major step down from the original. In the original you could grab one builder and basically queue up massive amounts of things. As long as you make sure your future production will meet the requirements of that builder it wouldn't matter. You can't do that anymore, you can only queue up what you have available *now* and then you have to keep returning to that engineer to queue up the rest as resources become available.

The campaign missions, especially the first couple, were always rather scripted. The campaign AI is a seriously simplified version of what you get to play with in a skirmish as all it does is protect its base and send the same attack over and over.

 

ON the bottom of the first page apparently the demo campaign offers more "liner" gameplay.

That's a bit unfair, I thought the original was quite good.

 

I still play forged alliance nearly every week. Isn't often a game has enough playability to keep me going until the sequal comes out. Had a lot of disapointments game wise in the last 6 months (Dragon Rising) just hope this is good.

 

I haven't played the original, but I still have fond memories of Total Annihilation and with Starcraft 2 around the corner, this is gonna have to be seriously good.

 

Looking forward to this game.

"find out what's whether"?

 

"You can still set factories for repeat construction, you just can't queue up massive amounts of units at once like you could before. You can queue up say two fighters and a bomber with your air factory and then click the (rather tiny) "repeat" button and it'll keep building sequences of two fighters and a bomber until you make it stop."

This works until your resources are inadequate and then the factory will pause itself. Sadly it won't restart until you unpause it.

I can't see this replaced FA as our LAN game of choice, a good part due to points that you've raised in the preview. The inability to queue a large amount of structures etc will actually make micro-management MORE difficult than it was previously; constantly having to go back to your engineers and set commands. The same with the infinite build on factories. The pathfinding is undeniably an improvement, but the lego like visuals (especially the UEF) aren't doing it for me. The loss of adjacency bonuses for structures is also a real shame.

SC has obviously been redesigned to appeal to as many people as possible; sadly it seems that in the process it has lost a lot of the complexity that, as a 30 something gamer, made the original and FA so appealing to me.

One more thing; the demo was ridiculously easy, with no threat from the AI at all even on hard. I hope the full game is more challenging, but I suspect it will be suited for RTS kiddies.

I have my fingers crossed that the demo was a poor representation of the full game.

 

I much preferred SupCom2 to SupCom1. At least, I do so far.

Though, that might be because it ran fine, as oppose to the issues I had with SupCom1.

 

As far as I know, its the same engine with a different render component. As you say though, it's obviously not as visually splendid as the original. I was aware of the much improved and optimised path finding system, but felt there were more important points to cover.

The game will also use Steamworks and the steam system for multiplayer games, which as we all know is great news. As I said, I really hope the game delivers on full release, but can't help thinking the demo really isn't representative of the full game.

 

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/features/53364/Supreme-Commander-2-PC-Interview

It is the same engine. I thought it was different the first time I played it. Its just been dummed down to run on weak systems. Which I think is a shame, as Forged Alliance ran on my work laptop...

 

They GIMPed the crap out of the game.

 

That is a fcking awful design choice. I want to know what was going on in their minds when they made that decision.

Worse graphics than the first? Really? I was all excited for this game until I read this preview and the comments here. Now it looks like I'll stick with SopCom1. It's not often a demo puts me off from buying a game...

They took a bunch of good features of Total Annihilation and SupCom1 and got rid of them. I guess I'll have to wait until the reviews come out.

 

Played the demo a couple of days ago after not noticing the game was due for release so soon - i was really excited as i loved supcom and FA. Boy was i dissapointed - if i were square enix and gpg i'd want to keep this away from previewers all-togeather as it has destroyed a lot of what made supcom great.

The graphics look worse (too colourful, not as realistic somehow), the animations for units are weak (aircraft no longer land when not active - they just "hover" in the same place constantly). They've destroyed the resource system - it was nice to be able to plan out your building for the next 10 mins while you could go off and focus on an attack/scouting - now you have to keep going back to add more things to the queue when you've got the resources for them - why do i have to pay for something now when i won't start building it for 5 mins? Having to pay for research with a new "research resource" - what's the point - they've oversimplified the resource system in one place and now they add another resource which needs spending on research - why not just keep me upgrading the factories like the old system - that was brilliant and i wish other games followed that system.

I'm very dissapointed that they've CnCd the game and completely ruined it in my opinion (after the demo anyway - it's not the scale or linearity which has ruined it for me as that changes for skirmish - it is the changing and breaking of core game mecanics which ensures i'll stay playing supcom1 with FA for years to come).

 

I play both C&C and Sup Com, but only because they're so different to one another, one's quick and tank rush orientated with a simple resource system, the other incredibly long and far more confusing. I don't want something that tries to be both!

The fact they've ruined the resource system that set Sup Com apart is a massive step backwards IMO, it lent so much to the timescales that battles were fought on.

 

I played the 1st one and have the demo of the 2nd and have preloaded the 2nd
can't wait till it comes out on the 5th March
It will take over most of the end 6 months plus of my life